Expert Tips for Fact-Checking Your Writing

In last month’s post on false facts, I wrote about how some of what we believe is “common knowledge” (e.g, people lose more heat from their head than other body parts, chameleons change color to blend in with their surroundings) consists of urban legends and old wives’ tales. Such incorrect information and other instances of bad evidence can make their way into academic works and destroy an author’s argument and credibility.

In this month’s post, I’ll provide tips to help you prevent false information from creeping into your writing by thoroughly fact-checking your work as you engage in the writing and editing processes.

Where’s the Info Coming From?

The first step to ensure your writing is factual is to consider the sources your information is coming from. The best sources are those based on academic research found in actual brick-and-mortar library buildings or through library database searches. Make sure to consider who the author of the work is; some authors may have a biased agenda you can identify with a quick review of their bio, giving you an idea how large a grain of salt you need to take their thoughts and ideas with.

For more information about determining credibility of academic sources, see this excellent article on Purdue Global’s (Purdue’s online university for working adults) website on the subject. This article lays out several considerations to determine the quality of research and potentially identify red flags including who the author is and their qualifications, the funding of the research project, the quality of the research, and the publication date.

The news media can be another good place to gather information, but news outlets are also more likely to be produced by individuals and groups with an agenda, no matter whether they admit to it or not. They usually at least have the agenda of making a profit. So, it’s important to look for evidence of misinformation very carefully.

Look at the Language

Carefully educate yourself about the types of language that may be indicative of bias. False dichotomies (e.g., If you buy anything other than American-made products, you are supporting the destruction of the American manufacturing industry.), incoherence (presenting two opinions that cannot both be true at the same time), and emotional language (e.g., Voting for the Democratic candidate for the position voting to ruin our city’s economy forever.) are a few of indicators that what you’re reading may be presenting someone’s agenda rather than useful, accurate information.

See Truth Labs for Education’s excellent website with clear and concise educational videos and interactive activities to educate yourself more about misinformation tactics.

Online Stuff Can Be Good

Other than academic and media sources, you may also find useful information in blogs and website content, but approach this type or information with the most caution and rely on it the least in your research. Sometimes a good way to use this type of information is to go to the sources used by its authors, but if you choose to use the content itself more directly, be sure to follow the steps to establish its credibility and truthfulness outlined above.

Remember, if you have cause to question the credibility of any of your research, try to find another source that backs up the argument or consider just scrapping the source entirely.

(Not So) Common Knowledge

Finally, I’d like to circle back to my September post about “common knowledge,” the things we “just know.” As I found when writing last month’s blog, a lot of things we think we know are actually false. Such things are sometimes just based on old ideas and information and don’t even serve a particular purpose for someone with an agenda. When you are not sure about whether such information is true, a quick Google search will easily turn up the truth easily; check out a couple of people’s takes on the subject to be most sure of your findings.

Another thing to be aware of is that there are quite a few “fact checking websites” out there you may also want to check out. Some sites are searchable by topic like OpenSecrets.org, and others are collections of recent news stories that have been fact-checked since they appeared in print, like Politifact.com.

For a list of various highly regarded fact checking websites including those listed above, see the University of California Berkeley Library’s webpage on the topic.

A Final Source

I found one other little gem but one that’s only only tangentially related to the topic of fact-checking your own work as I was writing this post: a discussion on Wired.com of why it can be so difficult to find typos in your own writing and tips on being more effective at doing so, including changing the type, size, and color of the font you’ve used to trick your brain into seeing it as new information as your brain may stop seeing errors as the content becomes more familiar. Review the strategies listed in the Wired article to help you do a better job catching typos and content errors. And as always, consider having your work proofread by ProofreadingPal’s professional new eyes before submitting it for its final purpose.

Sarah P.